November 9, 2006
How to travel free or at least real cheap
I've been meaning to blog this CNN article for about a week or two so it's a little old. Still good though. It talks about different ways to travel free or cheap. One I've talked about a lot on this blog - home exchanges.
Some of the others are more unique. One was something a friend of mine wanted to try in high school - a driveaway. Here, you drive someone else's car because they can't get the car where it needs to be themselves. One experienced driveaway vacationer was inspired by one of my favorite books:
Ever since reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road in college, Jankiewicz has volunteered for driveaway duty whenever he could. A driveaway situation arises when a car owner needs his vehicle moved to a new location and either can't or doesn't want to do the driving. Rather than pay to ship the car, the owner signs his ride up for a driveaway program -- essentially giving a free car rental to a volunteer. "You encounter places you never knew existed, and meet people with the most interesting stories," says Jankiewicz. "It's cheaper than any other kind of travel. No one believes this even exists anymore."Other free vacation ideas include hospitality exchanges, volunteering to work on a farm, getting involved with a rotary club or sister city program, or becoming a hiking trail volunteer. By the way I worked on a hiking trail during my one month as a boy scout and it is hard work. Posted by James Trotta at November 9, 2006 12:09 AM | TrackBack
love to drive west at least to the continital divide
Posted by: raymond humphreys at November 9, 2006 9:15 AMWhat about the possibility of the driver crashing your car? Is there any way for a person to know if the driver is a safe driver? Or if regular insurance would cover any kind of problems? And if insurance covers this, who should have the coverage, the driver or the owner of the car? I personally think is risky to let somebody you don't know drive your car, especially if the distance is big.
Posted by: Cassia S. at November 10, 2006 8:24 AMHow would one find people who need such services? Sounds like a great adventure...I love to drive.
Posted by: Zoie at November 12, 2006 1:49 PMWhy would anyone who already has a car decide to drive someone else's? You still have to pay for gas, right? What if the pick up is miles from where you live?
Posted by: Tom at November 12, 2006 4:22 PMThese options are not particularly cheap. You still need the airfare or gas in most cases. What about the rides from the destination airport? When you add up all the costs from most of these ventures it would be cheaper to take a greyhound or fly and camp if in the states or fly off season as a courier and stay in youth hostels. Most people who want to travel don't want to have to work all day on a farm. There are plenty of farms nearby that I could work at and I could stay home and earn money and then travel.
Posted by: Tom at November 12, 2006 5:00 PMIf you had your own car, then I don't think you would drive someone else's. I'm pretty sure driving someone else's car would be better than Greyhound, but what do I know? I always drive and never take Greyhound...
Tom - have you ever flown as a courier? I've read about it, but have no idea how it happens.
Zoie - to find links about these things read the article I linked to. They have some links for these opportunities.
Posted by: James Trotta at November 13, 2006 10:23 PM